Help The Afghan Children

Our mission is to help Afghan children become educated, healthy, and productive citizens who are able to fully contribute to building Afghanistan's civil society. We accomplish this by working with supporting partners to establish model community-based schools in different regions of Afghanistan; by providing training to local educators to enhance their professional capacities; and by developing and introducing innovative learning programs

Afghan youth reject call to extremism

By Stephen Perlman - Consultant, HTAC

peace education class, Kandahar

Everyone told us it couldn't be done. They told us it was too risky. Go to Kandahar, Afghanistan, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban, and try to educate thousands of vulnerable Afghan kids about peace.

But that's exactly what we did. After months of painstaking negotiatiion with provincial and local officials in the very conservative region of Kandahar, HTAC implemented a bold, audacious project. We trained over 1,100 teachers and brought our peace education program into 22 Kandahar City schools, enrolling over 36,000 students.

Many of these students came from families that had been sympathetic to the Taliban's rigid ideology and it was not that long ago when many of the same teachers would regularly beat and threaten their students as a way to discipline them; where the concepts of toleration, and respect for other viewpoints were non-existent.

After fourteen months the results were in. 84% of all teachers had abandoned corporal punishment practices and were role modeling positive behaviiors in the classroom, creating a safe, nurturing learning environment that allowed students to ask questions and offer opinions without the fear of being beaten. Fighting, bullying and harrasment among students plummeted from an average of 880 per month to onbly 285 at all school sites, and 91% of enrolled students were demonstrating three or more of HTAC's critical peace action behavirors, including the use of non-violent conflict resolution to prevent or break-up potential fights.

Perhaps more impressively, was the impact of this program in the homes of these students. HTAC received over 700 unsolicited letters from parents and local community leaders telling us about the dramatic (positive) changes in the behaviors of their sons and daughters and that local councils were now beginning to incorporate the lessons of peace, respect and cooperation into their discussions and practices.

The lure of extremism continues to be a major threat to the stabilization of Afghanistan, but we are confident that the overwhelming majority of these youth have and will continue to reject extremist ideology and the violence it breeds and instead embrace the basic principles of peaceful everyday living.

Help HTAC spread peace education to other regions of Afghanistan.

Jun 24, 2015

Koshkah school children get their school supplies

By Stephen Perlman - Consultant, HTAC

Koshkak kids get school supplies

In a scene being played out more and more frequently these days throughout Afghanistan, too many Afghan children are going to school without the most basic learning tools; school supplies. Most of these girls and boys come from families that are extremely poor and unable to afford even the most basic of supplies.

The sad truth is, the world is once again forgetting about Afghanistan and once again, Afghanistan's children are the innocent victims.

Last year HTAC visited Koshkak School in the Paghman District of Afghanistan, less than 30 miles from the capital of Kabul. It might as well have been 300 miles. Scores of young students sat in their classrooms without a pencil, a pen, a simple notebook to write on. We wondered how could these students possibly learn. They deserved better.

So we decided to do something about it. With the help of an international humanitarian partner and many individual donors like you, we delivered school kits to 3,080 deserving children at Koshkak and 11,350 students at seven other schools in this underserved district.

Our greatest joy was seeing the excited smiles on the faces of these deserving kids. They are so eager to go to school and learn and thanks to many caring donors, we are giving these children a chance to succeed. Help us put smiles on the faces of thousands of other Afghan children by giving them essential tools to learn.

Jun 2, 2015

Girls school gets long awaited computers

By Stephen Perlman - Consultant, HTAC

There was a noticeable sense of excitement and anticipation among the students at Khwaj Musafer Girls High School in this often neglected region of Afghanistan. The girls had quickly filled up a classroom that had been converted into a computer laboratory and they sat there in groups of threes, gazing at a computer screen, a keyborard and mouse for the very first time; eager, but patient as they waited to be introduced to their computer instructor and receive their first lesson.

For these students at Khwaj Musafer, this moment had been a long time coming. Several years ago, during one of HTAC's periodic visits to the region, our educational team met with students and their teachers. We had been providing this school with two programs and wanted to get their feedback.

They told us how much they enjoyed HTAC's hands-on environmental education program that was teaching them valuable lessons about taking personal responsibility for their health and local environment and they were eager to show us their litter-free school grounds and beautiful maintained school garden. They were also grateful for bringing peace education to the school and we were impressed, not only hearing how students were embracing the princicples of peaceful daily living, but sharing their lessons and peace stories with their parents and other family members.

But there was one subject that kept coming up in our discussions. "When can we have computer lessons at our school?" Many of these students came from poor families and after high school, they faced a predictably dim future of being married off and bearing children, unless they had job skills.

To make their wish a reality, HTAC reached out to our donors and friends, and with their help and a lot of work, a program began to come together. Most of the computer equipment had to be shipped to Kabul, Afghanistan, then delivered by truck to the school. Because the school lacked elecftricity, a generator was purchased to provide power to the computer equipment. We also had to raise funds to pay a qualified computer instructor who would visit the school, once a week.

It took a while, but when the moment came in late March, and seeing the looks on the faces of these girls, we knew the wait was worth it. The computer lab is not large; 15 girls at a time can sit by a computer for their once a week lessons, which means about 75 students are able to get a weekly lesson. But eventually, our goal (with your help) is to keep this program running at Khwai Musafer so that all 719 deserving girls can obtain computer knowledge and skills that will transform their lives.